Dir: Augusto Caminito
Star: Christopher Plummer, Klaus Kinski, Barbara De Rossi, Donald Pleasence
a.k.a. Nosferatu in Venice

An unofficial sequel to Herzog’s Nosferatu… Well, that was the plan, anyway. The intent was rapidly derailed when Kinski showed up and proclaimed that he wouldn’t cut his hair, so the vampire here is not the bald creature from the original (and Murnau’s original), but sports a typically Kinskiesque main of shaggy, blond hair. [He does, however, have the same fangs as in Herzog’s film] That was only the start of a nightmare production, which chewed up and spat out any number of directors, while the money ran out when they had only filmed half the story. We’ll talk about that in a bit. Get some popcorn.

Vampire hunter Professor Paris Catalano (Plummer) is called to Venice at the behest of Helietta Canins (De Rossi), who wants his opinion on a tomb, tightly secured with iron bands, she has found in the family crypt. Could this be the actual resting place of the infamous Nosferatu (Kinski), who supposedly left Venice two centuries earlier? Turns out he did have a connection to the household, vampirising a distant ancestor of Helietta, whose portrait bears a spooky resemblance to her descendant. [Anyone who has seen more than two vampire movies will know immediately where this is going] Helietta organizes a seance, to try and contact Nosferatu’s spirit, but it acts more as a wake-up call, and he rises from his rural grave, though what he really wants is the black veil of death. Fortunately, the only thing that can kill him is the love, freely given, of a beautiful virgin. Any of those around? Hello, Helietta’s little sister, Maria…

Though set in the modern day, the film rarely feels like it, with a stiff, mannered approach to the characters which appears rooted more in the Hammer tradition of middle Europe in Victorian times. Venice provides a highly evocative backdrop and, overall, it looks very, very nice: credit to Tonino Nardi for the cinematography. Many scenes have a dreamlike – more accurately, nightmarish – quality that is not dissimilar to Herzog’s version, with people moving in what often seems like slow-motion. Nosferatu is particularly good at that, capturing perfectly the world-weary air of the undead: when you’ve lived for hundreds of years, you aren’t going to be in a rush to get anywhere. However, even its most ardent fans would have to admit that the story leaves a lot to be desired, and some scenes, such as Nosferatu flying, in very badly-done green screen, with his lady, may have strayed in from entirely different films [Superman would be a good guess for the one mentioned]. These do a good job of destroying the atmosphere, and the end result is a patchwork of the creepily effective and the cringe-worthy.

There’s good reason for this, because the film had as many as six different directors at various stages of proceedings. According to Luigi Cozzi, who was originally the special effects supervisor, the first was Maurizio Lucidi, who shot some scenes without Klaus, such as the Venice Carnival. Then Squittieri Pasquale wrote a new script, but didn’t actually direct anything. Third was Mario Caiano: he lasted two days, mostly spent arguing with Kinski. When Caiano left, producer Augusto Caminito took over, but was so slow he asked Cozzi to help out, doing second-unit work. Klaus also had “some creative ideas,” which Cozzi helped commit to celluloid. Kinski’s ideas made no sense, even with input from an experienced film-maker – but it kept the star happy, and willing to work with Caminito. This was likely in the best interests of both men, as part of the lure for Kinski to reprise his role, was that Caminito was willing to fund Klaus’s pet project, Paganini.

But eventually, the money for this one ran out, with only half the story filmed – in part, I suspect because Caminito had to pay all three directors who left the project their full fees. But he eventually cobbled together something that was semi-coherent, and it was premiered at the Venice Film Festival, mostly due to the producer’s clout. It certainly wasn’t as well-received as Herzog’s, and that’s fair enough, since Nosferatu had a far stronger consistency of tone, even if it was less imaginative and inventive. This throws some curves into the standard vampire mythology, such as the suggestion that they can be killed with mercury, while daylight and crosses are ineffective. However, these ideas are never developed, although who knows what might have happened, had the film been able to be made as originally intended.

The audio side is kinda weird too. It’s mostly a synthesizer-based soundtrack by Luigi Ceccarelli – but it also throws in chunks from the Vangelis album, Mask, as if Ceccarelli also had a fight with Kinski and left the production, leaving Caminito to fill in the gaps from his CD collection. Watching this with the English-language dialogue is equally odd, because Plummer and Pleasence are clearly recognizable as themselves, while Kinski is just as obviously dubbed by someone else. It doesn’t really impact his performance very much, because he hardly has many more lines than he did in the original – it’s all about the presence. And the staring. There’s lots of staring. Plummer provides good support in a role I can easily imagine Peter Cushing having played, but Pleasence is never given too much to do. He plays the family priest, Don Alvise, and one wonders, again, if perhaps his role would have been more pivotal had the film been completed.

In some ways, this is a Rorschach Blot film, where what you get out, is based on what you put in. Knowing about its troubled production, you’re left having to fill in the blanks yourself, and how much you enjoy this, may well depend on how good a job you do. Here’s the Japanese trailer.

Vampire in Venice aka Nosferatu a Venezia (1988… by Z-cinema